


Equilibrium

by cosmicmilktea



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Anxiety, Blood, Doctor Yixing, Hotel Artemis AU, M/M, Mafia EXO, Violence, a bit of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 12:42:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17601569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicmilktea/pseuds/cosmicmilktea
Summary: “If I knew a gunshot wound would be all it take for you to fuck me, ge” Jongdae rasps beneath him, “I would have gotten myself shot a long time ago”Yixing is an illegal doctor, and Jongdae is the patient who keeps coming back.





	Equilibrium

                                                         

 

The first time Yixing sees Jongdae, the man is a mess of bruises and dried blood, split lip somehow still managing a crooked smile as he leans unsteadily on the doorway of the Hotel.

“You’re pretty cute, doc” The man quips as Yixing hooks him up with the examination table, voice a pleasantly deep timbre.

Yixing smiles placatingly in answer, already used to patients simultaneously bleeding out on his tiles and trying to hit on the good doctor.

The man is definitely not bleeding out anytime soon, but beneath his clothes he is literally a map of fresh cuts and bruises, and Yixing has to wonder just what he did to acquire all this in one night. His patient looks up at him, notices the unspoken question.

“Sex traffickers” He grits out “Takes girls from rural areas and ships them off overseas. Nasty bunch”

“And you were alone?”  

“No time for backup. Otherwise the girls would’ve been long gone” The other man shrugs, winces at the motion, and Yixing almost finds himself wanting to ask more - Altruism not being a common thing to find in the underbelly of Seoul. _Almost,_ because Yixing deals strictly with aftermaths and nothing else.

The man dozes off halfway through, leaving Yixing to do his work in silence. He makes his way slowly through the litany of cuts and bruises – Relinquishing the need for any tech for such a menial task – giving himself time to finally _look_ at his patient.

The man is young – probably younger than him by a few years, face sharp yet soft all at the same time – Lips curled up at the edges as if it was made for a smile.

Idly, Yixing thinks that the other man is not so bad himself.

 

**

 

Eventually, everyone in the Seoul underworld goes to Hotel Elyxion – Goes to _Yixing_.

It’s as much that Yixing is a good doctor as the fact that the establishment has been, and will always be neutral ground amongst the constant shifting and warring of factions that is Seoul’s underworld.

Everyone gets hurt in this line of work, and so everyone is better off when there is a place where a paid nurse will _not_ conveniently smother you with a pillow. You pay for your membership, you respect the establishment, and no one has to die. Or, not as much.

And Yixing deals strictly with aftermaths – Doesn’t care for the why or the hows or what kind of vendetta sends his patients under his care. But Yixing makes it a point to know who they are – Each of the faces that goes through the steel and glass gates of the Hotel.

This man’s name is Kim Jongdae.

The files in his system tells him that he is new – Registered as a member just over three months ago - One out of a set of three calling themselves CBX. Deals mostly in casinos and illegal betting just slightly outside of Suho’s turf.

He takes in the bruises now blooming black and blue across the sleeping man’s pale skin, and suspects that he’ll be seeing more of Kim Jongdae in the future.

 

**

 

Yixing releases Jongdae the next day, the man winking at him before disappearing into a small, indistinct Hyundai with tinted glasses.

Yixing feels the strange urge to smile for the rest of day.

 

**

 

The week after he met Jongdae is hell.

He’s had weeks like that before, of course. Had been Elyxion’s resident doctor long enough that it’s supposed to be mere routine by now.

And yet, it’s times like these that Yixing is reminded that he hasn’t always lived this life. His world not always a series of too-white lights and the gentle tang of alcohol and anesthetics. There was a time when he was the one who shot and fought and bled, a time when his hands were steady as he took one life after another – Black lines on his ledger and red blood on his hand.

There is blood on his hands now – Latex gloves discarded and his patient dozing off peacefully even as Yixing feels anything but peace, fingers trembling in a gentle tremor that mounts and mounts to a silent crescendo.

He draws the curtains around the little nook he’s taken for himself in his examination room - so much smaller than his actual room three stories up – Folds into himself and counts to ten, then back again.

There was a time when Yixing’s hands were steady – When he took lives instead of trying to hold it together like so many grains of sand.

Sometimes, Yixing misses it.

 

**

 

The next time he meets Jongdae, he is carrying an unconscious man slung over his shoulders – smile grim yet still there as his bloody mess of a friend changes hands.

“please, doc” His smile falters, almost fails, and Yixing merely nods. Gently lays the bleeding man on his table and hooks him up.

The man’s heart stops once – Red beeping all around him as his systems tries to adjust, and Yixing’s hands too falters, almost fails, before he takes a deep breath and tries tries _tries_ to find his balance. He soldiers on and two hours later, his patient - One Byun Baekhyun, the files informs him – slumbers peacefully, alive and stable with only a bullet lodged forever on his sternum like a macabre souvenir.

Jongdae finds Yixing afterwards, head between his legs and hands trembling because he  _almost_ did not make it.

Yixing’s head snaps up, and even through his bone-deep exhaustion, he feels the need to explain – To cover the lapse in his façade because he is not who he was anymore and people like what he had been – Like Jongdae – should be able to trust him with their lives.

And yet, jongdae merely sits beside him, eyes straight ahead, voice quiet and low as he says, simply :

“Thank you”

Yixing nods, not knowing how else to respond, not even knowing if Jongdae sees it.

 

**

 

Jongdae drops by the Hotel the next week, completely hale and healthy as he saunters through Elyxion’s safety protocols, a laden plastic bag on his hand.

“You don’t seem to go out much, doc” He says by way of explanation, before Yixing finds himself seated down on his own waiting room with a spread of piping hot fishcakes and oolong tea between him and a smiling Jongdae.

Jongdae chatters away as they eat, and Yixing learns that the man is from Siheung, is younger than him, and has an almost unhealthy love of noraebangs. Somehow, Jongdae got it out of Yixing that he grew up in China and used to have a cat that he named cat.

Yixing has never told anyone else about cat.

Jongdae drops by again the next week – Armed with steamed buns and bubble tea that Yixing has to admit he misses from his days in Changsa. And then the next week, and then the next, until Yixing realizes that it has become a ‘thing’ – As his younger patients would call it.

Yixing also realizes that he doesn’t mind. Not so much.

 

**

 

The first time Jongdae touches him, _really_ touches him, is during one of his weekly visits. Upon finding an empty waiting room and an equally empty operating theatre, Jongdae finds Yixing behind the safety of his curtain – Folded in upon himself, hands shaking and breath coming out in short, ragged gasps because this time, this time Yixing failed.

He knows knows knows that he’s bound to fail, that life sometimes just slips, falls from your hands but it doesn’t stop his hands from shaking.

Yixing flinches, actually flinches as Jongdae’s hand touches his shoulder, and the younger man holds up his hands – Empty, safe, eyes beseeching and knowing all at the same time.

“It’s all right” The younger man says quietly, voice reverbrating between them and Yixing knows it’s just meaningless words. Wants to say just so and yet.

And yet it means _something_ , Jongdae being there - Hands bared and eyes wide – and so Yixing reaches back out, almost falls into Jongdae as the younger man opens his arms and Yixing’s world is warmth and the smell of gunpowder.

Yixing wakes up to a packet of meat buns beside his cot and the memory of Jongdae’s arms around him.

 

**

 

Three months in, and Jongdae calls him _ge_.

Yixing supposes he shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, Jongdae’s crew had started off in Shanghai – Earning him the moniker of ‘Chen’ of his CBX crew. Along with snippets of Mandarin he still wields with relative fluency, it made more sense that the younger man would call him so. And yet.

And yet Yixing almost misses the insolent ‘doc’ that Jongdae used to address him with, if only because Jongdae calls him gege with a tenderness that contrasts too much with his still insolent smile. Ge, he calls him gently, as if they had known each other for years and not just the fleeting days where he drops by the Hotel.

“You really ought to get out more, ge.” Jongdae grins over an open packet of honey-butter chips – All the rage with the youngsters, if Jongdae is to be believed. Yixing chuckles and acquiesces to a bite, feels honey and salt on his tongue and calm on his restless fingers.

Yixing smiles back, and lets Jongdae wash over him like the sea.  

 

**

 

“This is a _lot_ of condoms, ge. Been keeping busy?”

Yixing swivels around on his chair to look at Jongdae, bent over one of his cabinets and waving an array of foil packets - a shit-eating grin splitting his face and eyes thinned into crescents.

Yixing blinks, then laughs. Wants to explain that the amount of younger crew members who stumble into the Hotel – all flustered and confused – to ask him for the ‘talk’ is honestly astounding. That Yixing has taken to stocking all manner of contraceptions in the Hotel for that express reason.

Instead, Yixing smiles back, slow and languid to contrast with Jongdae’s “The cherry-flavored ones are particularly good, you know”

Jongdae’s eyes widens, almost comically, and Yixing just laughs some more.

 

**

 

There are days when Yixing takes on patient after patient without pause, when sheer adrenaline and the drive to make things right carries him through exhaustion and his own demons.

And then there are days when Yixing thinks he can’t do this anymore – Not when Jongdae’s blood is running down the operating theater drain, red against stark white as it goes on and on. The curl of his lips is flat and too, too pale, the raised sounds of his friend’s argument on who is to blame filtering through the old walls of the Hotel.

Yixing doesn’t deal in blames, doesn’t deal with the why and how his patients came under his hands. He is only here to deal with consequences. Only here for Jongdae.

His hands almost, almost trembles, almost fails him as the steady beeping of Jongdae’s heart falters.

“Come on” He whispers, to himself, to the man beneath him - who smiles at him and brings him lunch and calls him gege.

“Come on” Yixing whispers again, to no one in particular.

Jongdae is stable after two gruelling hours, and Yixing puts his system on intensive monitor before he collapses against the wall, hands shaking so badly until he has to hug himself.

His hands doesn’t stop shaking until Jongdae’s anesthetics wears off and he smiles at Yixing again, the edges of his lips curling up the way it should be.

 

**

 

Yixing fucks Jongdae for the first time halfway through his recovery – His friends having deemed the Hotel to be the safest place until he gets back on his feet.

He doesn’t even remember how it started. What inane teasing or what kind of coy smirk finally did him in. Only that his lips is suddenly upon the younger man’s – Warm and welcoming and surprisingly needy.

Yixing tries, succeeds only halfway through, to be mindful of the bandage still stretched across Jongdae’s abdomen. He braces his weight on both his arms, caging Jongdae’s smaller form as he pushes, deep and dirty, into Jongdae’s waiting heat – the jar of medical vaseline rolling to the floor, joining a hastily ripped foil packet.

Cherry-flavored, Yixing later finds out, to his own private amusement.

“Had I knew a gunshot wound would be all it take for you to screw me, ge – I’d have gotten myself shot a long time ago” Jongdae rasps beneath him, the curl of his hair falling over one eye to echo the obscene curl of his grin.

Yixing’s hips stutters, stops, the memory of blood and Jongdae’s pale, pale face still too fresh, too close.

Jongdae notices, and his grins softens – hands reaching out to pull him down, closer, into the familiar warmth that is Jongdae.

“I’ll be more careful“ He whispers in Yixing’s ear, small fingers tangling in his hair all firm yet gentle at the same time.

Yixing’s disbelief is drowned in his own gasps as Jongdae finally moves against him, and then nothing matters anymore.

 

**

 

Yixing wakes up the next morning with a sore back and a strange calm that he only ever experiences in that split second before pulling a trigger – Once when his life was the smell of gunpowder and smoke instead of the clean tang of anesthetics.

Beside him, Jongdae smiles languidly and the calm blooms into contentment – Warm and comfortable and wholly alien for Yixing.

The feeling stayed with him for the rest of the day.

 

**

Yixing lets Jongdae fuck him after another gunshot wound – This time a small graze on his upper arm – Jongdae’s blood still on his fingers as the younger man presses him against a cabinet, warm and frantic with leftover energy.

Jongdae is sharp with his thrusts - almost mean - Echoes how the curl of his smile always has a sharp edge to it.

Yixing takes it, takes everything and relishes the mingled pleasure and pain as Jongdae’s fingers digs into his flesh – hard enough to bruise, to _mark_. And Jongdae knows, knows, knows – That Yixing needs it.

“I hope you don’t make this a habit, Jongdae-yah“ Yixing says, a tad breathlessly, as Jongdae does the buttons of his shirt – fingers again gentle and considerate.

Yixing doesn’t specify between the gunshot wound or the sex, and Jongdae kisses him anyway.

 

**

 

To Yixing’s surprise, Jongdae does become more careful.

Yixing tries not to show it, but Jongdae’s smug smile whenever Yixing regards him with a once-over to find barely a scratch on him is telling enough.

The sex, though. The sex does become a habit.

Not that Yixing minds.

 

**

 

The next time they fuck, there is no gunshot wound at all. Rather, a patient who sleeps peacefully a mere curtain away from them – Jongdae crowding him into the wall of his cramped nook.

“It’s all right” Jongdae says, trails kisses all over Yixing’s fingers, his hands, his wrists, as they tremble and tremble – All the steadiness leeching out of him after hours under the harsh light of his operating theater.

“You did well“ Jongdae whispers, croons into the crook of Yixing’s neck while his fingers deftly loosens Yixing’s shirt, his belt and trousers in quick succession “You did so well”

Jongdae continues to whisper into his skin – Hushed and almost reverent, even as his hands roam all over him, even as Jongdae buries himself inside him, so, so close until Yixing doesn’t know where he ends and Jongdae begins, doesn’t care.

“You always do well, ge. That’s what’s most important” Jongdae whispers, carresses his cheek when they’re done.

Yixing almost believes him.

 

**

Some days are worse.

Some days, Yixing feels everything twofold – Feels the invisible trickle of life running through his fingers even as he tries tries tries to hold it all in. Some days, he can barely keep his hands still, much less pick up a scalpel.

His trembling fingers reaches out, finds Jongdae’s number before he realizes it.

“Ge, is something wrong?” Jongdae’s voice is tinny and urgent over the distance. Belatedly, Yixing realizes that he never calls – Always relies on texts when it’s Jongdae and he suddenly feels stupid, dramatic.

“It’s…it’s nothing” Yixing says, hasty, faint, trying to make his voice steady. But Jongdae knows him. Knows him too well now in the mere six months of their strange acquaintance.

Jongdae is inside the Hotel within fifteen minutes, hopping past his security protocols, breathless and wide-eyed, to find Yixing curled up in his cot.

“Sorry” Yixing tries to smile, even as Jongdae draws the curtain all over them, cocooning them in its familiar embrace.

Jongdae merely shakes his head, slips into Yixing’s space, envelops, cages him in warm arms and Yixing can only nod because despite everything, it feels right. _Jongdae_ feels right around him, like a piece clicking into place, the right weight bringing an invisible scale to balance.  

Yixing tucks this feeling in a crease beneath his heart. This precarious balance – to be pulled out when he needs it next.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

 

**

 

Jongdae takes him to the shooting range.

It started with a dinner date – Because, in Jongdae’s words, he’s had it with Yixing sitting on his crusty ass in his crusty hotel for weeks on end without getting any fresh air. The word ‘date’ hangs in the air once Jongdae said it, a strange and novel thing bouncing between them as they grill meat, drink watered-down soju, and finally end up in an unmarked building with rows upon rows of shooting target lined up before them.

“You said you miss it” Jongdae shrugs, by way of explanation, before a trigger is put in Yixing’s hand and everything clicks into place.

He aims, pulls the trigger, fires. Once, twice, thrice, until the target before him is riddled with a succession of holes – one precisely on top of the other.

Beside him, Jongdae fires all the same – the hole in his target an uncanny copy of Yixing’s own.

Jongdae’s hands trembles when he shoots.

 

**

 

“Don’t you feel like stopping, sometimes?”

Yixing asks this with Jongdae on top of him - crammed together on Yixing’s cot behind the curtains, limbs so tangled against each other that Yixing fancies they are one, somehow.

Jongdae doesn’t answer, eyes dark and searching, understanding, as he keeps a steady pace above him. He reaches out, clasping Yixing’s hand with his own – Both steady and still in what safety they carve out together.

“We do what we have to do, ge” Jongdae says gently, the upward curl of his lips a stark contrast with his eyes.

Yixing thinks they are not so different after all.

 

**

 

Their next date outside the Hotel is a lunch date.

“Wow ge, this feels kind of surreal” Jongdae looks at him over a pot of bubbling jiggae – The din of a lunchtime crowd around them a strangely comfortable cocoon. “Not actually having to bring your lunch to you, you know”

Yixing looks across the table at Jongdae, at how much he _fits_ into the warm bustle of everything and thinks, decides, that he too, can get used to this. Have this as part of his balance.

“We do what we have to do, Jongdae-yah” He smiles, and raises his teacup in a toast. 

 

**

 

There will be other gunshot wounds, other days when it gets worse and Yixing’s hands would probably always tremble as he tries to save lives, as Jongdae’s do when he takes them, but Yixing thinks that it’s all right.

All right when Jongdae slips behind his curtains, envelops him in warmth until Yixing’s hands stills in his embrace, the balances of his invisible scale restored for another day.

Everyone comes to Hotel Elyxion eventually, comes to Yixing.

It’s only right that Yixing has Jongdae to come home to.

 

**

 

**Author's Note:**

> Doctor!Yixing and Gangster!Jongdae are both something I keep near and dear to my heart, so I knew this fic is bound to happen someday XD But also, Yixing and Jongdae who both try really, really hard in making sure everyone and everything is okay really gets to me ;__;  
> As always, comments and feedbacks are highly highly appreciated - I hope everyone's keeping warm and eating well and getting more sleep than one Zhang Yixing (who really really should sleep more). Take care and have a great day! :3


End file.
